Original Message:
Nope, not exactly... (by KC):
stillintheb incorrectly states, quoted in pertinent part: ==================================== Re: >> When you dispute a charge on your card, you are saying to your bank that said charge was fraudulent. << ====================================
Not true at all. Disputing a credit card charge is merely asserting that a particular charge is either inaccurate and /or entirely unauthorized. There are many, many possibilities besides "fraudulent" (which, by definition, implies knowing, willful deceit in acquiring funds). An inadvertent, innocent double entry by a store clerk on a $15 purchase, for example, is hardly "fraud" by the vendor --- but it can (and should) still be disputed. Likewise for two innocently transposed numbers within a purchase charge. Minor, inadvertent mistakes in figures are hardly "fraudulent" charges by the vendor.
====================================== Re: >>There is also a flag added to your credit report. That flag states that you claimed a valid charge was fraudulent, in essence committing credit fraud yourself. << ======================================
Nonsense, plain and simple. A credit card report may or may not even reflect the card holder disputing a charge at all. Even if it does so, a card holder having legitimately disputed an entry on his / her account which they believed to be questionable or inaccurate certainly is NOT "in essence committing credit card fraud yourself". That's just pure baloney. Any and every consumer has the right (and should always exercise that right) to IMMEDIATELY question any and every charge they ever find on their account if and when they have substantive reason to believe (and can support the claim) that the charge is either numerically inaccurate or was entirely unauthorized.
You are correct about ONE point, however. A recording or a contract can indeed conclusively demonstrate that a charge was knowingly and voluntarily authorized in a specific dollar amount by a credit card holder. A consumer is always individually responsible for understanding the details of anything and everything for which they authorize a charge on their credit card account. Making a bad personal decision by CHOOSING to pay money (via credit card) to a useless, completely ineffective upfront fee "advertising and marketing" parasite doesn't make that person a "victim". Instead, the person has (unfortunately) voluntarily CHOSEN to make a bad (and expensive) personal decision, from which they are unlikely to ever see return of any of the money whose charge they overtly authorized in the first place. That's not a "victim", but an unwise VOLUNTEER.